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ABC's & Numbers with a late child
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Hi All,
I could use some help or just a boost. I’ve taught ABC’s and how to count to 6 kids. Somehow, I don’t seem to be getting through to number 7. He is more than willing to sit and point at a Letter A and the Apple, say the name and sound. I decided to plow thru the past several weeks with the first 6 letters of the alphabet and try to get recognition of 1 through 9 at the same time. I’ve tried to keep things slow and steady progressing through each letter and number. Over this past two weeks, I’ve been working on having him color in letters and count many different shapes and toys. His ability to hold a pencil has improved after I put a large rubberband around his wrist and one around the top of the pencil giving him the sensation of where the pencil should rest. He enjoys telling his favorite parts of stories and acting them out with his cars and trucks.
I feel instead of continuing with learning more letters and numbers that we need to find a way to get this first block learned at least to a solid recognition. I’ve been using Language for Little Ones to teach the ABC’s and counting. What can I do different? He really is not ready for more letters or numbers until he can recognise these. He will be 6 in September. I must have documentation for state requirements sitting in his portfolio. (SC state laws.)
Maybe I’m just struggling with CM and requirements of proving progress? sigh… Comparing PS standards with a child who is not there? Totally stressed with the need of my children meeting “homeschool standards.” We love our reading time since we started our first Module with all of my kids this year so far. (ages 17,15,13,10,7 and very soon to be 6.)
Not ready to resign… just feeling like I’m missing something.
MeadowLark
I experienced the same thing with my third child. She had a tough time learning letter sounds and retaining the information enough to keep adding new letters. I tried the same approaches and curriculum as I had used with my first two kiddos and it just wasn’t working. Of course, most of the reading curriculums required a knowledge of each letter’s sound prior to learning to read, so her desire to read was looking impossible and I was getting pretty discouraged. Then I found a gem ~ “The Reading Lesson.” Their website is http://www.readinglesson.com (and the curriculum is sold at Timberdoodle, Amazon, and Rainbow Resource, as well). You don’t have to know all of the letter sounds to start the curriculum, the letters are introduced at a slow pace, you can self-pace the lessons, and using the few letters you have learned you begin reading adorable short stories right away. Being able to read was the motivation my daughter needed and I was amazed at how much more she was able to retain in regards to letter sounds when she was putting them to use in reading! We also use Queen’s Language Lessons. We did the lessons in this book ~ if a new letter was introduced before we came to it in “The Reading Lesson,” we went ahead and did the lesson but I didn’t concern myself with her retaining that information (that came once the letter was introduced in “The Reading Lesson”). Acutually, I found that when we came to a letter in “The Reading Lesson” that we already discussed in Queen’s she learned it much easier and retained this information with ease as well. We used “The Reading Lesson” book and later I also purchased the CD-ROM ~ which I highly recommend as it again reinforced all we were learning in a fun way (my daughter loved the Giggle Bunny that is on the CD-ROM). The CD-ROM was also great to keep her moving along and providing practice with what she already knew when I didn’t have time to sit with her.
I hope this helps!
Angie P.
It took one of my boys over 3 years of ACTIVE teaching to get him to learn is letters, numbers, colors and shapes. I was beating my brain against every brick wall I could find. One week, while sick in bed with baby #4, I put in Leap Frog’s Letter Factory. He came in to tell me all the letters. He watched it every day for a week and never had a problem again with his letters. If only I’d known at first!!!!! He learns exceptionally well from movies for some reason. NOT very twaddle-free but it absolutely worked for him. I also bought the corresponding flashcards which helped him recognize familiar characters.
We followed that up with Happy Phonics which has a lot of games to play. He really enjoyed those and we could practice over and over as needed because it was “fun”. All my kids thus far have really loved this program.
I don’t know what to say about the state requirements because I’ve never had to deal with those. Can you just put the hours you worked on them or do you need to list specific things worked on?
And for another twaddle-filled suggestion, the Preschool Prep Co. DVDS are great for learning shape, color, letters, numbers, and sight words. Three of my boys do great with me teaching them from books or lessons, but for one son the videos are key to him initially grasping a concept. Once he has it we can move into other programs or lessons, but his brain just works for videos. At first I felt all sorts of guilt about it, but now I just feel glad we figured out how to help him!
Heather
I too recommend Leap Frog DVD’s. They are awesome! The fridge phonics that you buy are great too! I know they are not twaddle free! But, kids do have different learning styles! We also used starfall.com. This has really helped son #2. He will be 6 in Nov. With starfall you get to have printables too! It is free and my son loves it! And my 8 yr old still to this day loves it! (guess it brings back memories) I didn’t have to teach my first son to read. He taught himself by age 4. So this is new to me. Finally my second is catching on! There is also a great game to purchase from Starfall. We have it, and it is wonderful. I use many avenues while teaching reading and math. Not necessarily all twaddle free. We do mostly CM, but my kids learn well with switching up different styles. Some computer, a game, and actively doing reading or math (living math). Hope this helps!
Thankyou, I’ll start looking around to see where I can find some of these. I need to find them really low cost. My budget is spent for the year already. sigh… I still need to make this work for him. I’m getting out more play dough tomorrow! I’ll keep trying the freebie games with the Folder Games too. I have the Happy Phonics.. unfortunately it is scattered and a lot is missing. I got it back in 2002. I wish I had it all together… sigh.
Sometimes kids just need time too. My 4th born was like this. I tried EVERYTHING to get him to learn numbers and letters. He just didn’t learn it. It took him until 5 1/2 to recognize up to 10. We then started working on up to 100. Again trying EVERYTHING. I was about ready to give up (at least for a little bit) when he came up to me one day with a field guide and showed me the number 228 at the bottom and told me what it was!!!!! It had finally just sunk in and he could recognize all numbers to 1000! On the other hand, this child is now picking up math operations (+, -, x and divide) and word problems with no problem AT ALL!
He was the same with letters/sounds. Tried everything! He is 8 now and is reading fine. Still struggles a bit with “weird” words but is otherwise doing great.
So I would just keep track of what and how you worked on things for hours/portfolio and give him time. He’ll more than likely get in by the end of the year. For the portfolio, I’d also include narrations (oral, picture) and pictures of what he’s doing and a list of all the good books you’ve read to him.
Rebecca
Most libraries have the Leap Frog videos, and some friends might too! Starfall is great. I didn’t use it for my struggler, but my youngest 2 have used it a lot and love it.
If you told me what you have in Happy Phonics I might be able to help you figure out what is missing.
Heather
Hi – I don’t really have a comment about the late child issue as I don’t have enough experience to know anything about that LOL but if money is an issue and you are looking for a phonics program, here is a free one. The first section teaches the alphabet, although I have only used the end of beginner phonics and am now into intermediate.
http://www.progressivephonics.com/
You print the books off – I print in b&w and then go over the words that should be in color with a marker or highlighter.
In this program, you read together with the child – you read some words, they read others. I have about abandoned my expensive scholastic phonics program with my 6yo ds because he likes these books so much. The element of us doing it together is very appealing to him. He still wants to be in my lap as much as possible LOL.
Hope someone can use this free resource!
Gem
I bought my Happy Phonics years ago when it was only around $20 dollars or so. Now it costs $49. sigh.. I know I saw the cupcake tops and bottoms around the house and used them last year.. they have disappeared. ( My 15 yr old just informed me that my son actually tore them up and threw them away.ugh) I have the Yellow set Reading House and the Green set.I’m not sure all of the Green set is there. I do have the book for Happy Phonics. It has a picture of a girl and boy on the front with cards in front of them. There was a copy of the My Big Book and a a Beginning Reader with it. All of that is missing.
I don’t know how much I can just try to make. I have become a member of the File Folder Games and am going to try to use some of them as games.
Angie, which LL book from Queen’s would you recommend start with for an older child who can’t read yet? Should I just start from the first book, or is it possible to jump ahead a little?
OOPS! I just reread my post… I didn’t get Happy Phonics in 2002. LOL! I got it when we first moved down to SC in 2003. ah… my years thinking cap was off.
I did look at the Progressive Phonics. I registered and still can’t move around that site yet. I’ll try again tomorrow.
Today, I used a slate and just asked him to write a few letters ( trace some of mine.) I’ll keep looking for things to so with him. I miss that little cupcake with the toppers on it! I must have only used that with my now 10 yr old. I don’t remember all the different games that we played.
Angie, which LL book from Queen’s would you recommend start with for an older child who can’t read yet? Should I just start from the first book, or is it possible to jump ahead a little?
Renee, You can look at samples of each book at http://www.queenhomeschool.com to get a sense of the content of each book. If you are wanting LL for the copywork, picture study, grammar, etc. you might want to start with Language Lessons for the Very Young (I used the “Very Young” volumes for grades 3rd and 4th). If you desire to have reading instruction in these lessons you will have to choose a volume in the “Little Ones” volumes. Honestly, I don’t think the reading instruction included in the LL by itself is going to be enough to teach a child to read, but it is a nice review and/or allows extra practice. The first two “Little Ones” volumes don’t have much opportunity for copywork (just a few words to write down at most). In Language Lessons for Little Ones Volume 3 (which is the volume just preceding the start of the “Very Young” series), reading instruction is first presented in Lesson 5 and states this “In Language Lessons for Little Ones: Volume 2, you learned how to read short vowel words. Copy the following short vowel words below, then read them aloud: cat, hog, fill, went, song, duck. Lesson 6 has a list of 12 short vowel words to read aloud. Lesson 7 then presents “Silent E.” By the end of LL for Little Ones Volume 3, the student is reading long sentences (Lesson 177 ~ Copy this sentence and read aloud, “Mrs. Whittington had compassion on her friend, who had a cough, and took her some soup and bread.”) The final two lessons have the student reading a poem called, “Gardening” and then writing a story of their own telling about working in a garden, or drawing a picture of a garden.
Obviously then, if your child can’t read short vowel words already, you’ll need to either back up a volume (Volume 1 only presents the letter names and formation while Volume 2 presents the letter sounds and begins to put these sounds together into words) or go to the “Very Young” series where you are not expecting reading instruction at all; you’ll need to read the lessons and instructions for your child and realize that they will be copying sentences, paragraphs, and poems that they cannot read.
Hope this helps!
Angie P.
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